


xbox, hash browns, and other necessities

by agivise



Series: terra firma [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Post-Canon, and oh daniel's there too, doug deals with his amnesia, isabel's running away from her problems, renée's a mess, the folks are back on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 06:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13969035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agivise/pseuds/agivise
Summary: No one can scold you for being mentally distant when you don’t officially exist.(No one can judge you for abandoning your only family when your two closest friends are an amnesiac ex-alcoholic kidnapper and and a dissociative artificial intelligence.)





	xbox, hash browns, and other necessities

**Author's Note:**

> i procrastinate my writing by working on other writing whoops  
> today's song recs: seaside by the kooks and answer by phantogram

 

Renée never bothers getting her death certificate revoked.

She’s a lawful woman, through and through. Always been a real stickler for rules, even if those rules are entirely her own construct. They’re never her own construct, though. Never had a need to be. Everywhere has rules pre-made. Thousands of ‘em. Millions. For every imaginable variation of every imaginable circumstance involving every imaginable person.

On Earth, there’s this rule. Real neat rule. Says you can’t just be there and be legally dead.

Well, it’s a rule in the sense that it’s a rule by process of elimination. No law says you can’t be presumed dead if your heart’s accidentally still beating out there somewhere. Hell, no law even says you can’t fake your own death. It’s the surrounding laws that are always the issue. Things like taxes and social security numbers and drivers’ licenses. Things you can’t reasonably get around while staying safely away from all the red tape.

For example, her marriage certificate is void now. Till death do us part, and all that jazz.

She’d always loved space more than she loved him.

She flung herself out into the hell of the stars and drowned in it because she wanted to see the galaxy so much more than she wanted to see his face over breakfast each morning. But he was her husband, and that did still mean something even after all those years, and so she used that title as a scapegoat for every earthly motivation, every draw she had to head back planet-side. She were to ask herself why she wanted to go back, she were to ask what was always at the back of her mind, and her thoughts would respond just the same every time. _My husband._

It had a nice ring to it for a while. Around year two, it just became a mantra of hers. Two and a half, those words, they started to lose their meaning. Three, and she realized that it was a hollow reply. She didn’t give a shit anymore. She didn’t give a shit about anything except keeping her crew alive.

During that brief period of time that they spent reentering the atmosphere, she though about her husband a great deal, but only as a concept. Not once did her thoughts ever even use his name. And much too long after, after a great deal of procrastinating, she showed up at his doorstep, and he cried, and she cried, and it really sucked for a few minutes. She almost told Hera to give her a moment of privacy before she remembered that the poor thing was hanging back at the hostel with Eiffel for the evening, trying to adjust to the fact that she was no longer, in fact, a spaceship. Giving each other some space. Something of which she’s had far too much and none at all for so, so long. Too long.

Her not-husband wept some more, and then she told him the whole story, late into the night, and she couldn’t quite convince herself to care whether or not he fully believed her.

And for a little while there, she pretended that everything could go right back to how it had been before the mission. That she could watch him cook dinner (fish, always fish) and fall asleep on her side of the bed (the left) and everything would be domestic and perfect and normal. And then he told her about his new girlfriend, and he cried and cried and told her that she’d been declared dead so long ago, that he would break up with the girl at the drop of a hat if she just said the word. That they could go back to how they were. Before. Always before.

She panicked, as any sane person would do in the situation, and just shrugged. Just shrugged at him, and rubbed her temples, and walked into the other room for a minute. He didn’t follow her, and then she made her decision. She didn’t love him anymore. Not really. Not enough to keep them together. Not because of what he did. He did nothing wrong. Not because of him in any way. Just because she wasn’t really herself anymore, not the woman who married him, not really. Years stranded in space can do that to a person.

The heartbreaking part of it wasn’t letting go of him. It was letting go of being able to use him as a point of motivation. Because now, three months later, when she asks herself what the hell she’s even doing back here, back on Earth, she just doesn’t have an answer.

She assumes that’s why she’s kept herself legally dead. Maybe that way she can convince herself that she has a valid reason for remaining emotionally unadjusted to life back on Earth. No one can scold you for being mentally distant when you don’t officially exist.

(No one can judge you for abandoning your only family when your two closest friends are an amnesiac ex-alcoholic kidnapper and and a dissociative artificial intelligence.)

Doug… oh, Doug. He’s a real handful, isn’t he?

He doesn’t mean to be. He’s trying his damnedest to not be. He’s trying so _fucking_ hard, and she really does appreciate that. But every sugar-sweet gesture he attempts is so unsettlingly not-Eiffel that she just doesn’t know how to respond. He’s maladaptive. Or maybe _she’s_ maladaptive, horribly maladaptive, and just ruffled by how smoothly he’s adjusted to the state of his life. He doesn’t seem particularly upset with his situation. Just _guilty._ Always so guilty.

What’s the opposite of survivor’s guilt?

Because Doug Eiffel died that day. This Doug Eiffel, the one who binged hundreds of hours of communications logs just to scratch the surface of the man he used to be, is nothing like the Eiffel she knew, the Eiffel any of them knew. And he’s so apologetic about it all. He keeps telling them all how _sorry_ he is that they lost him, and how sorry he is that he was such an asshole way back when, but _god,_ does she wish that one day he would just be an asshole again, just once. He’s too perfect now. He has flaws, sure, but they could be any old amnesiac’s flaws.

This Doug, he never spent long enough in zero-gravity to feel its full effects.

She drops a thermos of coffee on the floor because she forgets it won’t float.

And Douglas, he doesn’t understand. He never drops things like she does, because he doesn’t remember letting go of things only to have them hover in that exact same place until interacted with again. He doesn’t understand the constant shattered teacups, the bits of glass that dig into her feet where the broom didn’t reach, but he apologizes profusely anyways, tries to console her when things slip from her hands, fetches bandages for the soles of her feet, drags the vacuum from the laundry room.

She drops a thermos of coffee, and it burns her ankles, and when Doug comforts her, asks if she’s okay and fetches her some ice, she snaps at him, tells him to fuck off, because the Doug she knew would never in a million fucking years do something like that. Her Doug’s version of consolation would be teasing her and telling her where to find the mop and dropping his own mug of boiling coffee on his own feet twenty seconds later.

And he freezes, and asks if he said something wrong, and she breaks down sobbing, salty, ugly tears, and he goes to fetch Hera, in her quadruped body like Boston Dynamics used to make decades ago, like a creature straight out of Fahrenheit 451, and Renée wonders how she’s handled suddenly feeling so, so small so very well.

She scrubs the tears off her face with a rough paper towel until her eyes are dry and her skin is red and raw, and when Hera asks her why she was crying, she ignores the question and asks the pair if they want to watch _2001_ with her. Doug asks what it’s about, and Hera pauses for a moment before nodding her head silently in understanding. They watch the movie together on the ratty couch, Hera sometimes making little quips and jabs about the inaccuracies of HAL 9000, and Doug continuously asking what’s happening with the plot. No one questions when Renée leaves three-quarters of the way in to scrub the dried coffee off the kitchen floor.

Jacobi shows up three days later. Nobody understands where he’s been, or how he found their address, except for the incredibly default explanation of _he’s Jacobi, he just does these things, get used to it._

Minkowski’s not sure if any of the logs that Eiffel recorded pre-amnesia included Jacobi. She explained Daniel Jacobi to him, of course — she and Hera both did — but she glossed over a lot. Like a solid percentage of Warren Kepler’s existence. And almost all of Alana Maxwell’s. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. What he doesn’t know, to be fair, is a great deal. She loses a lot of the nuance of the story having to refer to Eiffel in the third person in front of him.

But Jacobi treats him like a complete stranger, which must feel like an absolute blessing to him, because to Doug, they _are_ complete strangers. Extra good news: Jacobi no longer holds a grudge against the guy. He’s still a cynical powder keg to the rest of them, but to Doug, he almost seems human.

It takes her a while to understand why Jacobi is here. What could he possibly want with a blank slate with impostor syndrome, an ex-spaceship in a glorified toaster of a body, and the woman who was directly responsible for the death of his friend?

She hears the cold ring of his voice as he (dis)quietly tolerates their day-to-day bullshit and destructive tendencies. She watches him interacting curiously with Hera, offering to build her a grenade launcher to hook up to her back just for the hell of it, before Hera eventually reminds herself that firepower like that serves no purpose planet-side, not with the lives they’re trying to live. She sees him reintroduce himself to Doug like running across him is some sort of strange coincidence, always so inquisitive, so jaded, so sharp-tongued. A week passes, and she sees Jacobi playing little tricks on him, little cruel tests to try to figure him out better, but always with good intent. He’s got gasoline where an empathetic heart should be, but it burns just as bright as a pure one when he puts his mind to it. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that their dear, darling resident amnesiac trusts this man wholeheartedly and indiscriminately, and may or may not be developing a teensy, tiny little crush. Renée is astoundingly glad that she can still read him far better than Hera and Jacobi will ever be able to. Despite everything, Doug’s tells are still so similar.

She can’t let the others know. She should, logistically speaking, but morally, it’s a real minefield. Hera — bless her heart, Hera would be just a little bit heartbroken. She loved him so much, and while she’d claim she was fine, it’d just be a nasty little daily reminder of what (who) she lost. Lovelace is off the grid in god-knows-where doing god-knows-what and probably having the time of her life. Renée has her burner number for absolute emergencies and monthly check-ins. She knows what constitutes emergencies. They all do. This is _not_ one. And their next casual chat won’t be for another two weeks, which, in her book, is plenty of time for things to spiral.

Jacobi, though — oh, Jacobi. He is, blessedly, exceptionally oblivious in all social contexts. He’s usually such an observant bastard, frustratingly so, but when it comes to people (see: Doug), he simply has no frame of reference.

There could be no greater disaster, she decides, than Douglas Eiffel falling for Daniel Jacobi. Not because Doug couldn’t deal well — he deals with her and Hera’s emotional breakdowns just fine and dandy, and is currently handling the whole _total retrograde amnesia_ thing really fuckin’ well, all things considered. But because if Jacobi discovered that his new favorite human specimen was developing _feelings,_ he’d probably combust right then and there. Out of fear, if anything. Or maybe guilt. Stress? She’s not great at guessing. Or emotions. Certainly not guessing emotions. _Certainly_ not guessing the emotions of a man with the emotional state barely more stable than a slab of C4 in a microwave.

But she doesn’t intervene. Just watches Doug’s confused flirting bewilder Jacobi. Maybe steals the idea and flirts with Isabel just a bit during their next call, just to test the waters. Maybe likes the results. Definitely keeps it a secret from the boys.

This doesn’t feel like home, but it feels like a damn good approximation of what she believes home to be, so it’s tolerable. Nice, even. She thinks she may be happy.

Doug works in a 24-hour diner now. Real classic urban American sort of diner, all cherry red and cotton candy blue. Earning his keep. Or maybe he just needs something to keep him busy.

He goes by _almost_ his real name there. He’s got fake identification papers, just like Minkowski does, courtesy of an old acquaintance who owed her a favor or two. An acquaintance who was maybe not too happy to discover she was alive. Her name, on paper, is now Renée Lorentz, for convenience’s sake. The fake names aren’t necessities, not really, but it’ll stop any red flags from being raised. She can keep going by Renée, without the constant paranoid fear of being stalked by Cutter’s ghost. Or his employees.

Doug, however, had insisted on — fought tooth and nail for, really — keeping his last name the same. She couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why. She’d’ve thought, out of all of them, that he’d have the absolute least attachment to his name. Maybe he felt the need to cling to it, after losing every other sense of self. Or maybe he was just sick of her calling him _Doug,_ and calling past-Doug _Eiffel,_ and did it just to spite her. She’ll never understand him, not really. Not now, not ever.

She eventually convinced him to at least pick a new first name, just to be sure, just to be safe, for the IDs. She asked him what he wanted to be, and he’d shrugged and grabbed her phone and pulled up a random name generator on google. Hera laughed, and Renée sighed, and he tapped the screen just once before looking back up at them.

“Orion,” he had said to them, tone flat and unamused. “Ironic, really. That it’s space-related, I mean. But it’s as good as any. Orion Eiffel. Don’t wear it out.”

She’d raised her brows and smiled quietly and scrawled it onto a post-it note. _Orion Eiffel._ God, what a name.

The woman who runs the diner had taken one look at the name, nodded curtly, and tossed the resume back to him. “Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and call you Eiffel,” she’d said, and just like that, Eiffel had gotten a job, and his name back.

She visits him at the diner one day, and it’s remarkable, really, how good he is at his job. He’s been here two weeks and the regulars already adore him, cooing and cawing when he bats his eyes and tells them little secrets about the menu. His hair’s still too short to pull back into a proper ponytail, but he certainly tries, dark, wavy strands falling back in front of his eyes every time he twists his head too quickly.

Eiffel’s got the graveyard shift when she decides to visit. It’s eleven at night. She sits at a booth and nods Eiffel over. She really shouldn’t be ordering coffee.

“Hey, Eiffel? Get me a coffee,” she says anyways, abandoning any semblance of self control. At least she didn’t order a scotch, like the tiny voice at the back of her brain kept telling her to. She’d managed to keep Eiffel as far away as possible from alcohol the whole time they’ve been planet-side. They even sat down and had a proper adult conversation about it. He completely understood. Didn’t protest once. Understood her concerns. At least he has a sense of self-preservation now that his memories are gone. Lucky him. Lucky them.

He rolls his eyes and turns to a tough-looking old woman at the counter. “Hey, Sheila? Two coffees, black, please. Hell, it’s late, pour one for yourself. I’m buying.”

The woman — Sheila — huffs playfully and pours three full mugs. Real, proper mugs, and judging by the smell, some good, strong coffee. Renée thinks she might just cry.

“If any more customers walk in, this counts as your break,” Sheila reminds him as she hands two of the mugs over, and he smiles in return.

“Oh, I know, I know,” he teases, and sits across from Renée in the booth. “Thanks, Sheila.”

Renée warms her knuckles on the outside of the mug, breathing slowly in the thick diner atmosphere. “You like your job,” she says, and it’s not a question, just an observation.

He nods and smiles and that smile fades a bit, just a bit. “Yeah, it’s great here. It’s still weird, adjusting to — well, everything. But it’s nice.”

“Something on your mind, Eiffel?” she asks, and his eyes brighten up a little bit at her name choice, even if she’s just using it because she’s in public.

“No, no, I just —” He sighs and takes a deep sip of his coffee. “I know it’d still be pretty… unorthodox, I guess, but do you think Hera would ever be able to work in a place like this?”

She blinks at him for a moment, surprised. That wasn’t quite what she expected to hear.

“Not in here, I mean,” he continues, “or maybe here. I’m not sure. I just — I know she gets so bored, right? Not having to run rocket-science calculations all day, I guess. I just think she’d find it fun, is all.”

She wants to lie to him, but she’s not sure what the truth is, so she’s finding that task quite difficult.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But there’s no harm in asking around, right? I’m sure you could find something for her to do eventually.” She taps on the table to draw his distracted gaze back over to her. “Hera would definitely appreciate the effort, Eiffel. You’re a good man. Things are pretty rough for us, for you and me and all of us, but you’ve always had a good heart. Even now. Even after everything. Thank you for that.”

He smiles, and thanks her, and downs the rest of his coffee far, far too quickly.

“Oh, be careful with that,” she chides, brows drawn. “You’ll get shaky hands.”

“Doesn’t matter how shaky my hands are. You’ll still be the reigning champ in breaking fragile objects,” Eiffel jokes, dragging his nails across the ceramic surface of the mug.

Clever guy. He’s catching on.

“You’ve absorbed Jacobi’s sense of humor, I see,” she taunts lightly.

He blushes at the accusation. “Uh, no I haven’t. You’re projecting. Stop projecting.”

“Oh, god, I was hoping I had been mistaken. You actually like him, don’t you?” Minkowski sighs, siping idly at edge of her mug.

More blushing, more deliberate lack of eye contact. “He’s… y’know. Cute. He’s really cute.”

“No, no, I don’t want to hear about your stupid crush, Eiffel.”

“I just bought you coffee!” he protests, leaning back in the booth theatrically before stealing her mug to take a sip. “And — and it’s not a crush. Shut it.”

“Be careful. You’ve shown a tendency to make some pretty bad decisions.”

“You mean the caffeine? If you think this is bad, you should’ve seen the two Red Bulls I chugged right before —”

“I was actually talking about Jacobi,” she interjects, “but please, for the love of god, do not replace your history of alcoholism with a stimulant dependency.”

“Uh, no, not _my_ history. And why _exactly_ should I be careful around Daniel? Think I’m gonna hurt his feelings? As far as I’m aware, I’m not really much of a heartbreaker —“

“Hate to interrupt you again, but if you’re already on a first name basis with him, you’re much further gone than I thought. And honestly, I’m not sure _what_ to expect between you two. You’re both disasters. That’s disaster squared.”

“Hey!”

She laughs and steals her coffee back. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just trying to warn you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember the past between you two. _He_ does. And it’ll still affect both of you.”

He sticks his tongue out at her.

“Eiffel, get your ass over here. Break’s over. And you still suck at making hash browns. You need some quality time with the skillet,” Sheila calls from the kitchen.

Eiffel pouts. “Ugh. This conversation isn’t over.”

Renée rolls her eyes and taps the menu beside her. “Excuse me, I haven’t ordered yet.”

He grabs his notepad from his hip and starts writing something.

“I haven’t asked for anything yet,” she points out.

Eiffel tosses the notebook over to her. On it, in almost illegibly loopy handwriting, are written the words _HASH BROWNS (ALL YOU CAN EAT)._

She groans. “I’m not paying for you to fuck up hash browns until you finally get one right. I’m not your lab rat.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you over the sound of me being really good and perfect at my job.”

“If you give me food poisoning, I’m suing you.”

“Can’t sue me if we’re both legally dead,” corrects Eiffel.

“Then I’ll amend my goddamn death certificate. _Please_ don’t accidentally poison me.”

“So intentionally is fine, then?” he teases, before taking the notebook back from her.

“Go annoy your other customers, Eiffel,” she sighs, moving her hand over her mouth to cover the faint line of her smile.

“Surprisingly, you’re the only one who’s fucked-up enough to show up at a diner in the dead of the night on a Tuesday.”

“You’re here, too,” she points out.

“I sure am. Also, you’re definitely paying for the hash browns. I just spent most of my last paycheck on an Xbox.”

“Jesus _christ._ ”

“Hera wanted to play MechAssault!”

“We have _electricity bills._ ”

“Why do you think I’ve resorted to the graveyard shift?” he jokes.

“Eiffel, if you aren’t in the kitchen in the next twenty seconds, you’re scrubbing the toilets,” Sheila warns.

“Oh, fine. Prepare for some mildly-terrible and mostly-non-poisonous hash browns, Minkowski.”

She’ll never get used to him pronouncing that correctly. It’s like deeply unsettling music to her ears.

“Promise?” she asks, hands still hiding her smile.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you so much for reading, and kudos and comments mean the world!!


End file.
